The clay tablet text, which was discovered alongside around 30 other tablet fragments, specifies 9 lyre strings and the intervals between those strings – kind of like an ancient guitar tab..... The notation here is essentially a set of instructions for intervals and tuning based around a heptatonic diatonic scale.

Warren and four of her Democratic colleagues in the U.S. Senate fired off a letter on Monday demanding the committee hold "immediate" hearings [Sept 20th] to "fully investigate the matter...This was a staggering fraud," Warren told CNN last week, adding that she's skeptical Wells Fargo management was unaware of illegal activity of this scale.

The timing couldn't be better. If this breaking story pans out, Hillary could be in a world of hurt.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they make what’s supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, multiple sources tell the Observer.

The overcharges are occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks receives up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who has been a victim of this fraud scheme, has filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.

Wells Fargo fraud department inundated with calls from low-income Clinton supporters reporting repeated unauthorized charges.Hillary for America processed a total of $94 in unauthorized charges to Carol Mahre’s US Bank account. This follows a pattern in which unwitting donors are charged multiple times, but always for a total of less than $100, which is a key trigger point for banks’ internal action systems.

A heptatonic diatonic scale is basically what we've grown up with. Heptatonic = seven steps to the octave. Diatonic = only half- or whole-steps. I'm kind of amazed that something that old should sound so new, and a bit suspicious that it mightn't be as new as all that.

So, how many people in the world can define or explain a heptatonic diatonic scale?

It's a seven note scale, with only whole tones, no half tones. "Diatonic" is fine. "Heptatonic" instead of "seven note" is just being a pompous dick.

All these reconstructions have to be taken not just with a grain of salt, but with a metric ton of it. There is no music in the world that has a better attested & documented history than Western liturgical plainchant (commonly called "Gregorian" chant). We have the manuscripts that cover as the notation moves from "unstaffed" ("in campo aperto", in open field**) to the Guidonian staff much like modern music is notated. But, even with all that wealth of manuscripts, an unbroken chain of performance, & quite a few Medieval treatises on musical theory, we have no idea of the rhythm of Gregorian chant. This is the sort of question that occasions gang rumbles at musicological conferences.

In other words, we have no idea of the rhythm of anything in western music until Perotin (around 1200). For the rest of the world, it's even worse. We know that all the world's cultures had flourishing musical traditions since time immemorial. The Egyptians had orchestras. Homer & the Greek tragedies were all sung. The ancient Chinese & the Indus Valley civilizations as well. But waddya we got to show for it? Absolutely jack shit, is what! There's no surviving manuscripts for any of it!

It's so frustrating. Music is probably the oldest art. But in terms of what survives, it's by far the youngest.

Walk on music that Trump can use without the artist or his estate complaining. The music, however, more accurately reflects Hillary's energy levels, but she probably wouldn't want to be associated with a barren, dessicated fertility goddess. Besides Cher, of course.

YH: There is no music in the world that has a better attested & documented history than Western liturgical plainchant (commonly called "Gregorian" chant). We have the manuscripts that cover as the notation moves from "unstaffed" ("in campo aperto", in open field**) to the Guidonian staff much like modern music is notated.

That's simply not true. Not the history, I mean, but the idea that it's better documented than anything since. It's maybe better studied than anything since, but I doubt even that. My own field of study was Haydn, and I'd wager that we know a lot more about Haydn than about plainchant, even given that there's a lot less of the former than of the latter.

I'm sorry to be a wee bit unclear. I meant among ancient music, meaning anything older than let's say 1200, when we have manuscripts that we can unequivocally transcribe.

For post-Baroque music, you are completely correct. But, I'll still pick an argument with you on lots of Renaissance & Baroque music. While we have lots of manuscripts & treatises, we don't have an unbroken chain of performance for e.g. Vivaldi, like we do for Gregorian Chant.

@Curious GeorgeThe most endearing aspect of rating the new songs on Bandstand was the nerd who was appointed to be the mathematician. His job (it was always a he) was to add the three ratings and divide by three. Not many of the kids on the program were up to the task.

I enjoyed listening to this melody. You know what listening to this makes me think? Star Trek is wrong; we are not "evolving". Rather Ecclesiastes is right, there is nothing new under the sun because people are still motivated and inspired by virtually the same things.

There's a YouTube video of the Syrian National Orchestra performing the same song in 2010 that is completely different. Scratch marks in a clay tablet can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways, apparently.

Indeed there's much uncertainty about how to interpret the directions on the tablet--tuning, notes, rhythm. I found this essay from the U of Toronto site helpful (the first section is about the words, the 2d and more interesting to me section is about the music).

Listening to it i am sure that they read the tablet from right to left when it was supposed to be left to right. That would explain why it sounds like it is played in reverse.Or did it give specific instructions on how to listen it it which i missed